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Showing posts from October, 2015

Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

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Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige                 Dorothy Must Die has been on my radar for a while. It’s the story of Amy Gunn, a teenage girl who lives in a trailer park in Kansas. She doesn’t have many friends, is known as Salvation Amy because of the clothes she wears, and has an alcoholic mother. One day her trailer is swept up in a tornado and she is whisked away to Oz. But this isn’t the Oz that she remembers from the stories. This world is different. It’s different because Dorothy returned from Kansas and is now harboring all of its magic for her own uses. Now Amy, as the other “outlander” is believed by some to be the only way to get rid of Dorothy. The Revolutionary Order of the Wicked is now training her to kill Dorothy.                 I imagined that this story was going to be extremely dark, a little grisly, with a kick ass heroine that would be able to execute the plan with no problem. That isn’t exactly what happened. This story was extremely dark, a littl

To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino

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To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino                 I had never read a historical nonfiction account of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I am elated that the first time I am able to dive into the history of what happened, it is with To Hell and Back: The Last Train from Hiroshima. Pellegrino did an amazing job telling the stories of these survivors and everyone involved in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This book was well researched and beautifully executed. Pellegrino has a very simple, matter of fact narrative style that allowed for the history to simply unfold. He went over the facts of what happened explaining the technicalities of the uranium and plutonium bombs with ease. He explained what happened to those at Ground Zero of both sites sparing no details so that readers could capture and understand just how horrifying and disastrous the events were. Pellegrino was unbiased when depicting everyone’s story from those in

Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina by Misty Copeland

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Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina by Misty Copeland                 I remember when I was younger hearing about a Debbie Allen production of The Nutcracker. I was very young and had never been to a ballet before but I was intrigued. Debbie Allen was a famous African American dancer and choreographer and her production, The Chocolate Nutcracker , would have an African American cast. I never got to see that ballet and I hadn’t thought about it since. So imagine my surprise when reading Misty Copeland’s memoir Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina realizing that she was the lead dancer in that very same ballet I had heard of as a little girl. I was shocked and yet amazed that a young girl that was raised in San Pedro, California, not far from where I was raised in Los Angeles, was now an author and an acclaimed soloist for the American Ballet Theatre in New York.                 Misty Copeland came from humble beginnings and an unstable childhood. Her mother was forever t

When the Diamonds Were Gone: A Jewish Refugee Comes of Age in America in the 1940's by Julian Padowicz

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When the Diamonds Were Gone: A Jewish Refugee Comes of Age in America in the 1940’s by Julian Padowicz                 When the Diamonds Were Gone: A Jewish Refugee Comes of Age in America in the 1940’s is the fourth memoir written by Julian Padowicz. This memoir focuses on Julian arriving in the United States and being placed in an educational system when he barely understood the English language. The memoir begins with his arrival to New York. He is nine years old and would soon be enrolled in 4 th Grade at a private school. He has fled Warsaw with his mother Barbara. They have escaped war torn Europe and landed in Brazil and have now reached their final destination. The book continues to follow Julian throughout his journey until he graduates college and begins his career.                 I found this memoir enjoyable. Padowicz tells his story with such vivid detail and honesty that is hard not to be invested in his plight. He has a non-existent relationship with a man